Looking for a way to describe Elon’s win streak? Try calcifying’

The Elon University men’s basketball team’s four victories in a row and climb up the ladder of the Southern Conference standings could be described by a variety of generic sports terms.

Winning streak.

On a roll.

Kicking butt.

Hot like fire.

But rather than settle for something simple, coach Matt Matheny has gone bigger and better — and maybe even scientific — with his word play in depicting the forces at work for the Phoenix.

Elon is “calcifying,” per Matheny.

“It’s the beginning of hardening,” he said. “We are not to the point where I can say we are a really tough team. We’re not to the point where I can say we’re tough as nails. But we’re getting closer. And that’s just what we’ve called it.”

Calcifying but not calcified.

Satisfying but not satisfied.

Take, for instance, the nitpicky parts of Jack Isenbarger’s post-game comments from Thursday night, after his sizzling six 3-pointers in a second-half stretch of less than five minutes — he hit seven for the game and finished with 23 points — cooked Chattanooga 85-61.

“We’ll use this as confidence going forward, but at the same time, we’ve got stuff to fix,” Isenbarger said. “There’s still areas to improve on, possessions where we got sloppy with our defense.”

That tighten-it-up mindset figures to be tested during the coming weeks. Four of Elon’s next five games are on the road, starting with today’s assignment at The Citadel, which owns the Southern Conference’s worst record.

Elon, coming off a perfect three-game homestand, has risen into a tie with Samford atop the league’s North Division.

Matheny increasingly has been encouraged by the chemistry and leadership that’s flowing throughout Elon’s team.

But he also wants his veteran players to police themselves more in certain situations, such as the couple of lax minutes early in Thursday night’s second half that helped Chattanooga cut Elon’s 14-point lead to seven.

“These guys, regardless of the score, we need them to play at a level for us to improve,” Matheny said, sitting between Isenbarger and Ryley Beaumont, two of Elon’s four junior starters. “And they understand that. They’ve heard it from me for years.

“We expect a lot of them. And we weren’t getting it there. So we need to be a little better.”